


Suledin

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Romance, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 07:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3110879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan is a hunter; her bow will be her constant companion for the rest of her days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suledin

Ellana knows she isn't awake.

She is both too light, and too heavy. The tender flesh in her shoulder—a wound still healing from her battle with Corypheus—doesn't pull when she brings the bowstring to her cheek. She has hunted so long that she even dreams of it now, and she cannot decide whether this is good or terrible.

Her target is drinking at the shore, unaware of her presence. She wouldn't normally kill a wolf—another sign she's dreaming—but this one has caused problems in the Plains. She can't remember what they are now, precisely, but they were problems, and she's meant to solve them. That's what she does, isn't it? Solve everyone else's problems.

The wolf's ears flick back. Its head lifts.

She looses before it can attack her first, but in a whirl of smoke, the wolf is gone. An elf stands in its place, her arrow clasped in his fingers, his shoulders draped with fur. He stares at her, eyebrows drawn together in surprise. She rises from her crouch, lowering her bow.

"Solas?" she whispers.

She isn't awake. She isn't awake, and maybe he isn't  _really_ here, but maybe—

He looks down at the arrow in his hand; a smirk hides at the corner of his mouth, as though he struggles to contain it. For a moment, the sun dims. She can feel her heartbeat, hard and heavy, trying to wake her up, and instead of letting it, she breathes deep. She stays.

"You don't usually hunt wolves," he says, and though they are twenty paces apart, she hears as though he speaks in her ear.

He did, once. Such lovely words. Soft and reassuring, even when she didn't recognize them.

"Only in Redcliffe," she replies, and then, the words compelled from her, "only when necessary."

The smirk is gone. He looks up, directly at her, and she  _knows_ in the pit of her stomach that this is not just a dream. It  _is_  him, he is here, and—

"You continue to surprise me," he tells her. She takes a step forward, but the dark look he casts at her foot dissuades her from taking another one. "I do not know how you found me, but it cannot happen again."

She is lost. This is wrong—the pride left to her twists in her stomach, demanding that she turn and leave before he can walk away from her first,  _again_ —but she squares her shoulders. "I am a hunter," she declares. "I can  _always_ find you."

His eyes flick away from hers and back: a tic borne of fear, if she didn't know any better. "Do not follow me," he implores her, " _please_."

"I will do what I must," she says. Her fingers dig into the grip of her bow; even in dreams, her weapon reassures her. "Or will you do to me what you did to Cole, and remove the possibility?"

Without having moved at all—it doesn't get less disconcerting, that aspect of the Fade—he is standing inches from her. For a moment, but  _only_ a moment, she prays that he will touch her again.

"Cole cannot help me," he says, emphasizing every word as though attempting to burn each into her brain. "It would have hurt him, deeply, to try, but it is not in his nature to give up on someone in pain."

"You did him a kindness." There's a scoff in her voice, one he doesn't take kindly to; she can see it in the irritation on his face. "Is that what you're saying?"

He grasps her by the chin. It is not a gentle touch, and she regrets having wished for it. "I did only what was necessary."

She laughs. "Is that what you tell yourself?" she asks. "Was that your comfort, when you left me in that clearing?"

"It is not  _comforting_ ," he snaps.

She wrenches from his grasp. "I am relieved! I thought perhaps you derived pleasure from my pain."

If she isn't mistaken, she has  _wounded_ him; he certainly seems offended. "You must think very little of me, to believe that."

"On the contrary, I thought rather highly of you, until you started making decisions on my behalf."

He folds his arms over his chest. "I have not known you to ever allow decisions to be made for you."

" _I have distracted you from your duties_ ," she quotes. The Fade stirs around them, his voice adding weight to hers. " _It will never happen again_."

After a long silence—full of that old wound, as though it had been left to fester—he says, quieter now, "That was my decision, if I recall correctly—not yours."

"Either you loved me," she says, "and decided it was better for me if you  _didn't_ , or you left me because you did not. You told me that it was real. There is only one logical answer."

He, of course, does not offer that answer. He knows a trap when he sees one.

"Whatever you think the reason is that we can't be together," she says, softening, "it doesn't matter. I would stay with you, regardless."

"You would not." His fingers twitch, as though about to reach out to her, but he refrains. "If you knew, you would not."

"You have decided my reaction for me. Are you so arrogant that you believe you know my thoughts before I do?"

To her surprise, this elicits a laugh from him. "Vhenan," he says—weary, the endearment laced with everything it was not before. "I did not expect you to follow me here. It is obvious that I know your thoughts not at all."

On impulse, she reaches out to him, and he lets her—cups his cheek in her palm, and he closes his eyes. "Then tell me the truth," she whispers. "You won't know until you do."

Gently this time, his fingers circle her wrist and push her hand away. "There are some things I would prefer not to know," he tells her, and turns away.

He is halfway to the shore before she calls out, "I'll find you again."

His shoulders stiffen, but he does not turn back. "You are a fine hunter, vhenan, but I am not prey."

He is gone, and she stands alone in the rustling grass of an empty world, fingers clutching her bow too tight.


End file.
